Why Does Anesthesia Make You Act Weird?

If you’ve ever had anesthesia for at the hospital or doctor’s office, or have undergone sedation dentistry, you may be familiar with the loopy, out-of-sorts feeling it can induce.

Lately it’s been quite the popular internet trend to upload videos of patients fresh out of the hospital or dentist’s office after having undergone sedation.

One hit video titled ‘David After Dentist’ shows a 7-year old boy right after getting out of his dentist’s office. From his father’s perspective, the video shows him sitting in the backseat of his car saying funny things and acting generally disoriented.

This video alone has received nearly 129,000,000 views on YouTube, and there are many others like it.

How Anesthesia Works

Anesthesia is most often introduced via an IV or gas. As it starts to work it will affect the cerebral cortex, brain stem, and spinal cord. The effects do not occur immediately, but rather in what has been categorized into four stages. The first part of the process is called induction, and it is when the patient first starts to feel affected. The excitement stage is second and in it the unconscious patient may have mildly irregular breathing or twitching. By stage three the patient is fully unconscious and is closely monitored. The fourth stage goes beyond the typical experience of anesthesia. It is not a common and constitutes an emergency.